Game Genie (Mega Drive)

The Game Genie was a series of devices sold by Camerica and Galoob for the NES, SNES, Gameboy, and Megadrive that when used allowed the player to enter "codes" which modified the game data allowing the player to cheat. It was attached to the end of a cartridge and the whole assembly was then inserted into the cartridge port of the console in question. The codes had many effects, most often giving the player some form of invulnerability or infinite ammo or some such modification. The codes came in a little booklet shipped with the Game Genie or in a quarterly update that a Game Genie owner could subscribe for, but now all of these and many more discovered or created by players can be found online. There are whole websites dedicated to just Game Genie codes.

When the original NES Game Genie was introduced, Nintendo opposed it utterly, taking matters to court, and actually managed to initially stop the sale of the device in the U.S. (though they failed further north - in many gaming magazines of the time, Camerica had placed Game Genie ads saying "Thank You Canada!") Eventually, Nintendo relented, and the Game Genie was sold in the U.S. However, the design of the NES Game Genie, meant to deal with the awkward loading mechanism on the console, prevents it from being used with ease with the late-model revised NES (though it can be forced in.) An adaptor was made to deal with the problem, but few were requested, and can be hard to find today, as the stock was liquidated.

Though there are no current Game Genie products, most video game console emulators feature Game Genie support, and both the Pro Action Replay and Gameshark "game enhancers" can trace their lineage in part to the Game Genie.